"Other Spaces"
and New Cultural Identities
in East and Central Europe After the Fall of the Berlin Wall
CALL FOR PAPERS
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EAST FRONTIERS
"Other Spaces" and New Cultural Identities
in East and Central Europe After the Fall of the Berlin Wall
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INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
"SAPIENZA" UNIVERSITY OF ROME
9-11 MAY 2019
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COORDINATOR: MAURO PONZI
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After the fall of the Berlin Wall, new cultural and political identities emerged mainly in Central and Eastern Europe, following years of obscurantism deriving from the policy of Real Communism. Newly created spaces, identities, and boundaries have dramatically changed the cartography of those regions. Despite the rise of new forms of nationalism as well as of open or underground conflicts, these spaces and identities do not take the solid form of impassable borders. Yet they turn out to be an archipelago of multiple and complex bonds in continuous change, persisting in complicated relationships that in some cases imply hostile demarcations between "Self" and "Stranger", in some others display forms of inclusions in acceptance of what is "other". Since some of these communities do not occupy a precise territorial area, being dispersed in various states, one of the criteria for locating these "new spaces" is that of the "threshold". For the last 25 years a number of relevant artistic and cultural works have been generated both in territories with a strong political and cultural identity, and in those territories in the "threshold" and heterotopy. The interdisciplinary purpose of this conference requires articulated phases: the first one consists in identifying these other spaces that surpass the territories organised as states, and the second one in identifying those cultural phenomena featuring this trend, in the areas of German, Russian, Polish, Rumanian and Czech languages. Related themes, motives, expressions, artistic works will be considered. An intercultural comparative method will be used, in order to comply with the nature of the research itself, since cultural products of different, though closely connected, languages and areas as well as different artistic typology (poetry, novels, tales, music, film, plays, photography, figurative art) will be analysed and studied.
PANELS:​
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1. Theory and Methodology (Interculturality, National Identity, Hybridization in Central and East Europe)
2. Cultural Memory (Resemantization of the Common Past and Divided Memory)
3. Cultural Translation (Translation and Identity, Shared Memories)
4. New National Identities
5. Heterocultures (New German Identity, Austria and Neighboring Countries, In-between Spaces, Jews in Central and East Europe)
Contribution may be held in English, German, or Italian.
The speeches are not expected to exceed 30 minutes.
The proposals will be evaluated and accepted by the Scientific Board.
Speakers whose offers of papers are accepted will be expected to meet their own travel and accommodation costs. If necessary, they will be offered a help to find an accommodation by the University of Rome.
It is expected that a number of selected papers will be published in an edited collection following the conference.
Hence the essays will be subject to the evaluation of blind referees and published only in case of positive evaluation.
The proposals, in English (maximum 300 words), should be submitted to: MauroPonzi, mauro.ponzi@uniroma1.it, by September 30th, 2018.
Applicants will be notified by email before January 30th, 2019.
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TIMING:
- The abstracts in English (max. 300 words) should be submitted by September 30th, 2018
- The editorial committee will communicate which essays will be considered by January 30th, 2019
Conference Bureau: Gaia D'Elia, Antonella Fulli, Gabriele Guerra, Daniela Padularosa.
Scientific Board: Annalisa Cosentino, Luigi Marinelli, Camilla Miglio, Mauro Ponzi, Barbara Ronchetti, Angela Tarantino, Monika Wozniak.